1500 Stories Project to Host Community Meetings

'From Strangers to Neighbors'

De Anza to Host Community Meeting for 1500 Stories Project

De Anza College will host an Oct. 25 community meeting as part of an ambitious digital storytelling project that is exploring the effects
of economic inequality in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

The 1500 Stories project, led by Sociology Department Chair Jennifer Myhre, is designed to examine the divide between haves and have-nots – and what it’s like
to be economically vulnerable – through video, photo and audio story-telling.

Organizers are planning two meetings in October to gather personal stories about life
at different income levels in the Bay Area. The first will be held Oct. 11 at the
San Jose office of Sacred Heart Community Service, a nonprofit that serves low-income residents in the valley. The Oct. 25 meeting will
be held at De Anza’s Visual & Performing Arts Center.

The theme of the meetings is "From Strangers to Neighbors." In addition to sharing
personal stories, organizers are hoping that people who attend the meetings will forge
new ties and discover ways to make an impact in their communities and beyond.

"We hope that participants will get a deeper understanding of economic inequality
in Silicon Valley, see their communities with fresh eyes, and build connections with
people whose struggles may be both similar and different,” said Myhre.

“We believe that sharing our stories with one another is one of the best ways to do
these things,” she added. “And because of our partnership with Sacred Heart Community
Service, participants will leave with concrete ways to make a difference."

The 1500 Stories project gets its name from a poster created by economist Stephen J. Rose, which illustrates the distribution of income and wealth in the United States. An
early version of the poster in 1998 showed the gap between the nation’s richest and
poorest inhabitants was equivalent to the height of a three-story building. Twenty
years later, Myhre says, the gap has grown to the equivalent of a building 1,500 stories
tall.